T-Mobile USA Blames Lack of iPhone for Customer Loss in 4Q 2011

[spazzcat]

Originally Posted by Pared

There HAS TO be a reason why TMobile is the only major carrier left out of the 4S launch. They either did not want to pay the money or something...

It can't be a technical reason. There are way too many people on T-Mobile with iPhones already using all of these hacks...

The current iPhone 4S will not work on TM with 3G speed.

[l3it3r]

So much for all of those T-Mobile commercials that 'made fun' of the iPhone...

[Blakjack]

Kinda feel sorry for T-Mobile. They didnt even want to be here anymore, but they are forced to be in existance.

[justperry]

Originally Posted by acidfast7

welcome to 2009, US customers. I've had 50Mb/5Mb service for more than 2 years already.

lol


from wiki:

The world's first publicly available LTE service was opened in the two Scandinavian capitals Stockholm (Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks systems) and Oslo (a Huawei system) on 14 December 2009.

And I saw a program on BBC world a few months ago that says nobody use/used it because there is/was no Hardware.


Hope T-Mobile will get iPhone later on, the US needs more than two big providers.

Edit :

Originally Posted by Four oF NINE

Don't forget Sprint

Oops Three

[DerekRod]

Originally Posted by KPOM

If the new chipsets from Qualcomm support AWS, then my guess is T-Mobile will bite the bullet and commit to purchasing a boatload of the next iPhone this fall. I have both T-Mobile and AT&T, and what I have found is that, in general, T-Mobile works better in the city, and AT&T works better in the suburbs around here (NYC).

The iPhone 4S baseband chip currenrtly does support AWS its just inactive

[Four oF NINE]

Originally Posted by justperry

And I saw a program on BBC world that says nobody use/used it because there is/was no Hardware.


Hope T-Mobile will get iPhone later on, the US needs more than two big providers.

Don't forget Sprint

[andiwm2003]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

They should change their frequency and support 3G on unlocked phones and then go after the prepaid market.

In most countries this is more that 30% of all revenue.

[lkrupp]

Originally Posted by bommai

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

I don't think the us has room for tmobile. I think in a couple of years they will be dead.

And then at&t can buy the parts they want at fire sale prices. Mission accomplished. Silly DOJ.

[Pared]

Originally Posted by spazzcat

The current iPhone 4S will not work on TM with 3G speed.

I understand that... but that's because it wasn't designed that way. The 4S wasn't capable of working on Sprint and Verizon until they designed them with such in mind.

Had a plan been in place for T-Mobile, I'm sure they would have developed a solution.

[Inception33]

Wait a minute here... Isn't T-Mobile the one said they don't need iPhones couple of months back?

[DerekRod]

Originally Posted by Inception33

Wait a minute here... Isn't T-Mobile the one said they don't need iPhones couple of months back?

T-Mobile has been b!tch!ing about not having the iPhone for a few months

[grfxboy]

Originally Posted by 1080p

Why can't they just shut down their 2G Edge network and deploy LTE on their 1900Mhz spectrum.

Then they could have LTE with UMTS (HSPA) as their fallback. No one wants to use EDGE anymore. Any customers that happen to have a GSM/EDGE only phone could get a free 3G phone offered by T-Mo.

All the iPhones (and there are a lot) that are on T-Mobile would no longer have any data if they got rid of Edge. I don't think they want to lose us!

[gpat]

Originally Posted by Inception33

Wait a minute here... Isn't T-Mobile the one said they don't need iPhones couple of months back?

Of course they said that. What could they say in their advertising? "We would like to sell you an iPhone, but we can't, so get an Android"?

[acidfast7]

Originally Posted by justperry

And I saw a program on BBC world a few months ago that says nobody use/used it because there is/was no Hardware.

lol

there was even a 4G bus

[noisycats]

Originally Posted by *LTD*

So much for this:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1321445

Exactly what I was thinking. Per AS1's logic, T-Mobile should be the only profitable carrier since all the others are burdened with the 'money losing' iPhone.

[macinnv]

I read where T-Mobile will now deploy HSPA+ on 1900mHz now. Did anyone read any details on when and where this will happen?

[PCClone]

Originally Posted by Pared

There HAS TO be a reason why TMobile is the only major carrier left out of the 4S launch. They either did not want to pay the money or something...

It can't be a technical reason. There are way too many people on T-Mobile with iPhones already using all of these hacks...

IPhone didn't have the radios to support TMOs non standard frequency.

[DerekRod]

Originally Posted by PCClone

IPhone didn't have the radios to support TMOs non standard frequency.

The Qualcomm MDM6610 the baseband chip in the iPhone does support AWS

[swissmann]

I'm a T-mobile customer. I even just ditched my first generation iPhone (which I got for free for working at Apple) in favor of an HTC MyTouch 4G. Compared to my old iPhone it is much better of course. Compared to my experience with the iPhone 4S there are some things better and some things worse. Overall I say the iPhone 4S is superior.

But beat this. I paid $200 for my phone (including 32 GB SD card). I pay $50 a month for Unlimited Talk, Text, and Web (first 2 GB at high speed). I have yet to come near the 2 GB mark before my data gets throttled. So for 2 years I spend $1,400. I compare an AT&T plan which is the same but 3 GB and then paid for usage over that and I'm at $299 for a 32 GB iPhone and $119 a month for a total of $3,155. Every 2 years I'm can buy something like a 27" iMac with the left over $1,755!

I'd rather have an iPhone than a MyTouch but I'd rather have a MyTouch and a 27" iMac (or grocery money) than just an iPhone.

Only one time in the last 10 plus years was I in a situation where a Verizon customer had coverage and I did not.

I think all carriers should be at the price point T-Mobile is at. People I think you are paying too much for your phone and coverage. No wonder we in america are struggling financially.

[rnizlek]

Originally Posted by Jaredly

I want even one step further than that. I just want WIFI to be expanded. It is clearly the fastest way of getting online. Why not just get rid of 3g 4g 5g etc. and get wifi everywhere. Make calls and surf the web over wifi. I dont understand why phone companies wont do this. Maybe one day our government will provide everybody in the country with wifi (yes I know that would make people nervous because then the government would know where you are all the time).

NYC already provides wifi in its parks so why not just expand that? Just my wishful thinking I guess.

There's a few reasons. A big one is that WiFi is designed as a stationary technology. It doesn't permit roaming from site to site. So it would be completely unusable if you were on a bus, train, in a car, etc.

WiFi is also designed as a relatively short range technology. You'd be hard pressed to find good examples where it works well over a larger range, without needing a number of access points.

Finally, if you built out a nationwide WiFi infrastructure, with a similar footprint to existing cell networks, the cost of the infrastructure and the backhaul wouldn't be a lot different from what it cost to build and operate the cell network.

WiFi as a technology doesn't make sense in the context you are suggesting using it. What you're really arguing for is a government provided, nationwide LTE network. Which I don't think would have any substantial advantages over the existing system - either we'd pay for it in taxes or pay for it in our service charges to private providers. I'm generally left leaning, but I think that would really be overstepping the appropriate role for the government.

The reality is this stuff costs a lot of money to roll out and maintain, unless you're going to cherry-pick very specific areas to serve at a low cost (like MetroPCS). And even then it's pretty expensive.

[ThunderSkunk]

It seems the solution is pretty clear.

Offer what people want, plus what they can't get from the competition.

Offer iPhones
Offer unlimited plans on LTE
Offer data-only plans and encourage VoIP usage
Make no distinction between 5GB local usage & 5GB tethered
Continue the already reasonably priced plans.

Enjoy your new boom of subscribers, and put the $ into expanding your network.

[cmwade77]

Originally Posted by JediZenMaster

As a former TMO employee this doesn't suprise me at all. It's not the lack of an iPhone that has hurt this company this lack of direction.

TMO has been way too focused on being "Budget friendly" as well as for a long time the retention reps would just give away high end phones at a loss just to retain customers. In the end its about the bottom line

They should have taken a page from AT&T and Verizon's book. Oh well too late.

No, definitely not too late, what they need to do is get the iPhone in some form or another that will work on their high speed network and they will get lots of these customers back. This will be especially true if they do it within the next 60 days, as a lot of the other carriers have made recent changes or will be making changes that could allow people to get out of their contracts without an ETF.

In addition, stop with the throttling of data, if you pay the $5 (or even up to to $10) extra to officially allow tethering, perhaps require that they sign up for the $20 data plan though. This simple move wouldn't cost them anything and yet, it would encourage people to come back to or stay with T-Mobile.

[Shrink]

While I'm sure there are other factors, it seems like if you don't affiliate with Apple, you go under.

Iphone is one powerful (in so many ways) piece of equipment!

[locust76]

Originally Posted by acidfast7

(a Huawei system)

LOL, enjoy your downtime, Oslo!

[KPOM]

Originally Posted by DerekRod

The iPhone 4S baseband chip currenrtly does support AWS its just inactive

Is there a way to activate it on JB-ed phones? I'm just curious. If the next unlocked version supports AWS I will likely get it since I prefer T-Mobile in NYC and have a grandfathered "unlimited" plan that doesn't start throttling until 5GB and includes mobile wi-fi hotspot.